Middle Aged Men In Lycra

On any given weekend in cities around the world, you will find large groups of lycra-clad men with carbon-fibre bikes searching for the perfect latte.
Visiting Melbourne late last year I was shocked at the population increase since my previous visit. Thousands of men in brightly coloured clothes with freshly shaved legs and mirrored sunnies were all moving as one, like a big school of fish along Beach Road.
It has become known as the rise of the MAMILs (Middle Age Men in Lycra) and is apparently what men having a mid-life crisis do these days instead of buying a sports car. (I’ve also heard them called COBWEBs – Crusty Old Bastards With Expensive Bikes).
And now, like Mulga Bill from Eaglehawk, it seems that I too have “caught the cycling craze”.
Although I own neither lycra pants, nor a flash racing bike, for the last couple of weeks I have risen early on a Saturday morning, met up with a couple of mates and ridden along winding country roads into Lismore. (I was dressed in board shorts and a T-shirt and had to borrow a friend’s bike because mine is an old mountain bike with a baby seat rusted onto the back that was never going to cut it.)
The ride to town is about 18km, predominantly downhill and it takes in some spectacular views of cloud-filled valleys along the way.
Riding past Richmond River High, we (quite literally) ran into a group of serious MAMILs, all geared up and ‘spinning’ hard. (That’s bike talk for ‘peddling’). We tagged onto the back of their pack for a while, but they soon left us behind. (I think my mates were taking it easy on me.)
Heading back home to Dunoon via Numulgi and Corndale there are some serious hills to climb which really get the legs and the heart pumping. And I guess that’s the point of it. The life of the modern man is a very sedentary one; from the computer screen at work, to the car, to the TV. You have to make a concerted effort to find time to get out and get active these days.
I’ve been doing a couple of ‘bootcamp’ style classes and some boxing to keep fit over the past year and it feels good to work up a sweat first thing in the morning. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to go all the way and become a proper MAMIL (and I certainly won’t be shaving my legs), but the other options for men in their forties looking for some sort of escape from their lives seems to be drinking heavily or having an affair. A bit of carbon-fibre and lycra will probably get me in a lot less trouble with the wife.